Monthly Development Update – 29th of November, 2013

[Mastablasta]

It's really only about a year's worth of development.

[Legion84]

It's really only about a year's worth of development.

probably.. it would however be nice to see something officially released, small video of gameplay.. I hope they have the new head textures sorted, and new tree skins..

[edmaster3]

Personally the visuals were not a major problem. It was the learning curve. I hope I can be one of the beta testers for the new newbie areas. I would even resub one of my 3 accounts to test it out.
Once people learn what to do and there are other people around, everything will fall into place. They will have to remove or nerf a lot of the daily missions and the buying lvls.

[Esssch]

It's really only about a year's worth of development.

AKA even Mr Apologist realizes that Funcom did flat-out nothing for 5 years as far as the engine is concerned.

[ByLogic]

AKA even Mr Apologist realizes that Funcom did flat-out nothing for 5 years as far as the engine is concerned.

Maybe abit exaggerated, and don't forget that they had to leave the Ogre engine. If you start
working with constructors that some one else made with poor documentation, time can run real fast when searching what methods doing what, not to mention memory pointing. I have to defend the dev here abit, i admire the effort they put in to this. However i dont agree with this statements: Old code takes time. C++ as a object oriented language haven't changed much in logic, shaders and hardware have. You can teach a old dog new tricks without problems.

I still wonder why they found to much bones on models after a very long time, bone count is usually the first thing you look at when rigging models to a engine.

[Mastablasta]

AKA even Mr Apologist realizes that Funcom did flat-out nothing for 5 years as far as the engine is concerned.

No, I just know the real story whether what was done in the time before a year or so ago counts as nothing at all is debatable. But I'd probably lean on the side of nothing at all.

[Zolarik]

Would Funcom have done the work they have on the new engine if there hadn't been so many people over the years crying out for it???

Possibly.

Would all the requests have had an impact... probably but either way they didn't have to do all the work ... they could of just scrapped it with a view to concentrating on their new titles and for that i can only be grateful. If enough people moan about enough things, it can only lead to the conclusion continuing is pointless.

How about the fact that Anarchy Online is the only game that makes them a profit? If you're grateful then you are also naive. They have made really bad decisions as a company over and over again, and with the only product that really was successful, they have neglected for far too long.

[Pennypacker]

How about the fact that Anarchy Online is the only game that makes them a profit? If you're grateful then you are also naive. They have made really bad decisions as a company over and over again, and with the only product that really was successful, they have neglected for far too long.

Where in the world do you have that information from ? AO might make a profit but it's pretty minor in case.... If you're gonna state something that blatanly you should add in some sources..

[Bluecheeze2]

As long as your account is not frozen or banned, then no.

Is there any chance that, as part of this 'fresh start', AO will 'wipe the slate clean' for those who have been banned for many years to go along with the installation of the new engine? I was a mere child trying to break things when I first played and got banned. Now I'm in my 6th year of studying programming and computer science in college and can see the impacts of my actions.

Truth be told, all I want is to do is come home from work and school and just relax and PvP a bit, but I don't have my characters

Also, you were stating that you wanted to test this against many setups. I will say now that I am rocking the sleek, new and improved, TI-83. It does complex computation and helps tremendously with numerical analysis. Not much for gaming though ^^

[Difs]

didnt you make another toon in the time between "mere child" and "6th year of studying programming" ?
sounds a like it's been a long time

[User1337]

Feedback is fine, and I don't really chase after it, and skepticism is understandable, and this has been ten pages of venting so its hardly being suppressed.

However, outright state the dev team is lying and engaged in a conspiracy is a bit beyond the pale, and that's not skepticism or feedback, that's simply slander. So lets stop that, ok?

I think you can handpick those who've come up with conspiracy theories. They're not that many anyway. Not even in the hype of the snowball effect there were enough to make it a trend.

Otherwise, keep working on what you're working on and then come back to us in a couple days and say closed beta wasn't needed and that it's all ready to go! ;D

[Alternity]

Also remember that the new engine Closed Beta has just begun:

Anyone who uses this offer to sign up for twelve months of Membership will receive immediate access to the Closed Beta.

Well done

[Legion84]

Well done

lol, how immediate is invite, instantly after you subscribe for 12months? if not that's quiet misleading and should be reworded to be more specific.

I know I wont be subscribing 12months.

[BytEfLUSh2]

lol, how immediate is invite, instantly after you subscribe for 12months? if not that's quiet misleading and should be reworded to be more specific.

I think the wording is pretty clear - as soon as you subscribe, you get an invite. I may have mixed up "immediate" and "instant", though. And no, I haven't tried that offer.

[Kauh]

Well in all honesty, I think the members that have current 12 month subs should take priority over the newly subscribed.
The way they chose to do this is just not right. They promised closed beta access to the current 12m subbers and they fell through..

I am not impressed. I currently have 6 months left on my 12m sub, and I am certainly not re-subbing and losing 2 months just to get access to the closed beta which was already promised to current 12m subbers...
This is a blatant cash grab and a slap in the face to current subbers who were promised something, all wrapped up into one neat little xmas present. o.0

[smokex]

Well, I have been subscribing in 3 month sections for years. No break between the subs. Just 3 months at a time. My veteran points are far less and I have less chance to get in on a beta although I have payed them more per month over several years.

[doctorgore]

Has there been any dates given on how long they expect beta to run? You guys could be waiting 10 years for the vapor. This whole thing is a PR disaster.

[User1337]

Has there been any dates given on how long they expect beta to run? You guys could be waiting 10 years for the vapor. This whole thing is a PR disaster.

The last part is semi true... On the question, I don't think there's even an estimate. But given the development time, it should run smooth enough not for it to be too long. (?)

[MachSchau]

I dont know its hard to say. AO is really slow development and the engine patch also contains the NPE patch so they are being worked on simultaneously. I think they really want to make the NPE a really polished thing that really grasps the player and helps teach them and makes them stay. With the beta invites just now being sent out I would say a release for everything (NPE, engine and Steam release) is likely to happen in 6-12 months. Maybe internally they are shooting for an anniversary release so that there can be a lot of hype about all these things. But it is hard to say and no one has said anything, just a lot of guessing. SoonTM and when its done its done.

[Armus]

Given the reports from those who has access, it looks like at least 6+ months left. Ofcourse that's just a guess, but given the tortoise pace things are going at, it might not be too harsh a judgement.